Armed Services chair worried Obama will hand Gitmo over to Cuba

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) says he is seeking clear assurances that the Guantánamo Bay naval base won't be handed over to Cuba during President Obama's visit there this month.

"The Naval Installation at Guantanamo Bay is a strategically-situated deepwater port. It provides an ideal location from which to service, stage, and project U.S. Military Forces, secure the air and maritime approaches to the United States, undertake counternarcotics efforts, and provide disaster relief," Thornberry added.

Republican lawmakers are worried the administration will seek to give back the naval base, which houses a U.S. military detention facility that Obama wishes to shut down.

Carter told reporters Monday that the Pentagon intends to hold onto the base.

"It's a strategic location. We've had it for a long time. It's important to us, and we intend to hold on to it," he said.

Thornberry said although Carter's answer was "less equivocal than his Administration colleagues," he feared that "even seemingly direct statements are subject to reinterpretation by White House lawyers."

In his letter, Thornberry listed statements by administration officials that leave open the question of whether the base may be returned.

He also noted the administration also made similar statements in the run-up to a Guantánamo prisoner exchange with the Taliban for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

"In response to questions regarding the naval station's future, Administration officials have given hedged and qualified answers, stating they do not anticipate 'significant changes' in the mission 'in the near future,' that there is no desire to alter its status 'at present,' and that there were no planned revisions 'at this stage,' " Thornberry wrote.

"The committee has heard such qualified statements in other contexts as documented in in its December 2015 report on the transfer of the Taliban Five," he said. "Recent experience demonstrates that such statements do not accurately reflect the Administration's intentions or future actions."